Room-D Flashcards
“One chair to sit in”
-sense of isolation and emptiness
-doesn’t sound luxurious to sit in
-only sit not relax, ominous tone
-lack of company , reinforcing the solitary life of the speaker
-life has been stripped down to its bare essentials
-sense of loneliness and isolation, there is only one chair and its just to sit not relax
- use of singular objects creates baroness
-lexical set of nouns
“A greasy dusk wrong side of the tracks”
- “greasy” bleak adjective, slippery and dangerous, eerie as it becomes uncomfortable
-“dusk” when it becomes dark and unknown, there is more comfort in the light
-bad part of town
-bleak adjectives that illustrate everyday reality where nothing extra ordinary happens
-every bleak detail is noticed
- sense of gritty working class life where life is hard during the thatcher years
“Watch the lodgers light come on in the other rooms.”
-“watch”- to suggest lonely person
Implies this isn’t a scenario experienced just by the persona, its happening to many others
-universalising the experience more
- Duffy may be baking societal commentary and criticising Thatcherite economic policy
-shows the speaker is separated from others, observing life from a distance
“No curtains yes”
-she’s exposed and vulnerable as there are no curtains
- “yet” may imply she has just moved in
“Cool lightbulb waiting for a moth”
-bleak adjective -devoid of warmth- anticipation that’s never filled in her everyday
- moth is attracted to light, however its a fatal attraction
-sets eerie atmosphere as its referring to possible danger death
-metaphor in a larger sense, the speakers the moth, the victim/prey the room was waiting for.
-hilights the passage of time waiting for something out of her everyday
-yet like a light is a trap for a moth this is also a trap for her
-waiting for change will not happen and this every day ordinary routine will continue
“Hard silence”
-short sharp sentence, makes it rigid, gives time to think and reflect
-makes it seem uncomfortable and emphasise the room is unwelcoming
“Roofs of terraced houses Stretch from here to how many months.”
-sense of endlessness creates lack of hope as its unknown when it will end
-symbolising time dragging on
-visual repetition reflects the day to day repetition and struggle
-a sense of endless circadian routine
-time is dragging out, moving slow and becoming hard to define as it all blends together
“Room”
-repetition of the word
-like she keep reminding readers it is actually a room as the description doesn’t live up to its name
- suggests monotony, the speaker is stuck in an endless cycle of loneliness and emptiness
“One second hand bed to remind of a death”
Enjambment:
-single objects creates bareness of the room
-lexical set of nouns, singular nouns could reflect the speakers isolation and loneliness as normally a room would represent you and your personality
-metaphor for how the speaker feels
“Somewhen”
-time has lost meaning due to the bleakness of the persons surroundings and isolation
“Clouds the colour of smokers lungs”
-subtle pathetic fallacy
- could be a metaphor for mental state of the speaker with clouds representing her heavy and depressing thoughts
l
“Then what”
Doesn’t require an answer,
Ominous nature
“Black”
-window is described as black could mean the speaker cannot see a way out of this room
-she’s trapped
“A face “
- not uses a pronoun, Duffy makes the persona unrecognisable to themselves
-bleakness of their surroundings and despair it has cause them has created an impersonal empty person
“Face Takes of its glasses and stares out again”
-everything is vague and distant
-‘stares’ suggests a lonely person
–longing for something beyond the confines of her ordinary life
“Giftless moon” “cat pissing on a wall”
-moon normally gives light yet the room is so dark and negative the moon cannot counteract it.
-sense of hopelessness, the room is doomed
-Brutal realism, colloquial
Adds humour for reader
- even small details are harsh and unpleasant
-emphasising the setting as devoid of excitement
-captures the raw often unnoticed details of everyday ordinary life
“90pw”
-comical shirt sentence
-emphasises how ironic the room costs so much yet offers so little in comparison to its worth
-satirical take
-could represent thatcher years of poverty when there was high unemployment and the rich profited of the poor
Room- structure and tone
-fragmented, showing the disconnection of the reader
-lack of control or stability in life for the speaker
About
-depicts everyday but emphasises of the small specific details which are almost overlooked and dismissed as mundane
-highlights the struggle and monotony that defines everyday existence
- using the ‘room’ as a symbol for the kinds of life lived by its inhabitant
-links with mr bleany where the transience of the occupants is epitomised by the list of the rooms contents
Context
-thatcher years in 1980s
-England was filled with poverty and was depressing
- high unemployment
- the rich profiting of the poor
- Liverpool poets; caseura enjambment, alliteration
